You’re smart. Your parents are smart. Even your dog and cat are smart — but can a nation be smart? It can if the country to which you refer is Singapore. We are never shy about admitting that everything new and improved is a shining example of our urban planning efforts, so you couldn’t find a more advanced society in which to live than ours. But perhaps you wonder how Singapore’s mission to become the world’s first smart nation impacts runners.

As a Singaporean runner, you already know how assertive the government has been about maintaining, creating and nurturing green space, but what you might not know is that the most spectacular long-range project any country has tackled in recent memory is beginning to take shape: the rejuvenation of an area that once hosted the nation’s busiest rail line.